Thursday Links: The Art World Demands Answers

G. Wayne Clough, the Smithsonian secretary who censored the 2011 “Hide/Seek” exhibit on queer portraiture, has finally resigned. An independent curator of the exhibit told the Washington Post that Clough’s “tenure represents one of the last links to an older model of the way museums relate to the lesbian and gay queer community.” But, as Tyler Green points out, the Post itself minimizes Clough’s censorship by burying the story and mislabeling “Hide/Seek”‘s many defenders (including MoMA) as simply “gay activists.” [MAN] [The Washington Post]

“The Art world is the new music world,” Swiss Beatz said at a carnavalesque opening for the Galerie Perrotin on Tuesday, when the Parisian gallery (the supposed “French Gagosian”) set up shop on Madison Avenue. The afterparty, held at the Russian Tea Room, was an art-world carnival of Damien Hirst spin-art booths and crane-clawing for Murakami plush toys. “Our collectors are in the center of the art world, and you always have to surprise them,” said Mr. Perrotin…“People need pleasure” [New York Times]

If you missed it over twitter, yesterday was #AskaCurator day, in which twitter took its questions to 622 museums worldwide. Hyperallergic has a list of questions which should have been better addressed, most of them about the museum world’s enduring whiteness. [Hyperallergic]

The same questions have been raised perennially by John Powers, and specifically last week on NPR by Deborah Solomon. “This is an art season that could make you think that the feminist movement never happened,” Solomon noted, in reference to an excess of retrospectives for creepy white males (Burden, Balthus, Magritte). Walter Robinson put the question to facebook and points to John Powers’ 2011 proposal for an art world Title IX program, the 1972 law illegalizing gender discrimination in higher education. He thinks it’s worth a shot, and so do we; more on that to come. [John Powers; Deborah Solomon; Walter Robinson]

The gender situation, at least, looks a little better in Chicago, based on NewcityArt’s Art 50 round-up. In the institutional department, Madeleine Grynsztejn and Michelle Grabner lead the pack. [Newcity]

TONIGHT: Pin-Up and Gayletter host the afterparty for the Art Book Fair preview, near PS1. Expect this to be packed. [Gayletter]